Up Around the Bend

Catch a ride to the end of the highway
And we'll meet

by the big red tree, There's a place up ahead and I'm going, Come along, come along with me.

--Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Goin' Up Around the Bend"

Click here to hear CCR on YouTube.

It's summer, and an old fart's fancy turns to the thought of heading out on the open road in a convertible.  And lo and behold, I have three convertibles, what luck.  Of course the 1976 Triumph Spitfire hasn't been driven in years and needs a complete overhaul, not to mention a new top and interior.  The 1996 Saab is a wonderful car, and drives beautifully, but for now, the top doesn't drop.  That's right, it's a convertible that doesn't convert.  That leaves my 1980 Triumph TR7 drop-head coupe, to give it its proper British name.

Looks like a fast car, doesn't it?  Last time I drove it, I went with the Garden City Rods & Customs club on a day trip around western Montana.  We left Missoula, drove in a round-about way to Helena, then on to Butte, and from Butte back home to Missoula.  At least that's what everybody else did.  There I was in the middle of the pack, surrounded by 1937 Chevrolets, Fords, etc.  and I couldn't keep up with them.  Now in all fairness, those 1937 Chevrolets were stock only in so far as their bodies looked authentic.  Underneath the sheet metal, they were anything but.  As we drove up and over MacDonald Pass on US Highway 12 (elevation 6,312), crossing the Continental Divide, I lost all power and quickly fell to the rear of the pack.  Once across the pass and headed down into Montana's capital city, I was able to catch back up, but my car was not happy climbing that hill.

South of Helena, we once again crossed the Continental Divide at Elk Park Pass (elevation 6,352) and once again, I lost power.  This time the leader of the pack was keeping me under his watchful eye, and I slowed the whole caravan down to a crawl from my position in 3rd place.  After a tasty lunch in Butte, we drove on to Deer Lodge where we stopped in the shade of the old prison walls for ice cream cones.  After this break, I could not get the car to even turn over, let alone run.  I told the gang to go on without me and I would get home on my own.  Reluctantly, they agreed.  Once I got the car running again, I made it roughly fifty miles before I limped off I-90 and pulled into the parking lot at Beavertail Pond.  And there I sat for at least two hours before I could get the car cooled down and running again.

As I said, that was the last time I had driven the car, and that was back in the summer of 2012.  But hope springs eternal, as they say, and I was determined to triumph over my Triumph.  When we moved to Plains, Kevin and our friend Michael put both Triumphs on Kevin's fifth-wheel flatbed trailer, and carried them to their new home.  Until last week, neither car had been moved from where we left them once we unloaded them from the trailer.  But now it's summer, and I NEED a convertible. So...

Dog Lake, AKA Rainbow Lake

Alongside MT Highway 28

Sanders County, MT

Last week I was able to get the 1948 Frazer to run.  It has no brakes, so running consists of turning the key, pressing the button on the dash, and letting the engine idle for 15 or 20 minutes.  Having crossed that off my list, I turned my attention to the TR7.  Leaving the battery on the charger over night allowed me to listen to the sound of the engine trying to turn over.  It wouldn't catch, unfortunately.  Mike was visiting, so he and Kevin left me watching Jeopardy and when they returned, the TR7 was running.  Idling roughly, but running none the less.  I moved it up to the garage.  Yesterday, I took it down to pick up the paper. (Ok, our driveway is over a 1/4 mile long, and it's another 1/2 mile to the paper drop.  I can walk there in 20 minutes and it takes me 25 to walk back.)  This was an excuse to see if the TR7 would settle down.  It did, having run out of gas about a mile from home.  Lesson learned:  Do not leave home to test drive an old car if your cell phone is sitting on the bedside table.  Once I had walked home in the summer heat, Kevin drove me back to the car with a five-gallon can full of gas.  Gee, once it had something in its belly, it started right up and let me drive it back home.

Later yesterday afternoon, I was working on the internet and got a Skype call from my dear friend Reneé who told me that her 84 year old mother has a dream.  She wants to arrive at this summer's family reunion at the wheel of a bright red sports car.  Well, the TR7 isn't red, it's brown, and not a particularly bright brown at that, but I offered it up just in case and suggested I'd drive it to Kalispell so that momma can check it out and see if she'll be able to drive it.  Trying to find a time when both my schedule and Reneé's match, I agreed to drive to Kalispell (90 miles one way) on Tuesday, June 18th.  Yes, that's tomorrow.  Before I can drive that far, I have to make sure the car will get me around town, so that brings us to this morning's drive.

First stop once leaving home was at NAPA, Plains Auto Parts.  A couple of years ago the gas cap on the car broke, and I bought a replacement locally.    Victoria British, where I order most everything I need for my Triumphs, ran out of OEM gas caps two years ago, so that wasn't an option. The replacement looked good, but didn't really fit and wouldn't allow any kind of vacuum to form in the gas line.  It was time to do something about that.  Sam at NAPA was very helpful, but it still took one hour and two calls to other stores to find a cap that would actually fit and seal.  While I was at it, I bought a new fuel filter, ordered an oil filter, and got some rubbing compound and (very expensive) wax to see if I can't bring back the shine,  Once done at NAPA, I crossed the street to Town Pump where $34 put 9.4 gallons of gas in the car, filling the tank.  Now it was time for a real test.

 

View to the East from MT 28

Looking toward the Camas Prairie

and the Mission Mountains beyond

Sanders County, Montana

Montana Highway 28 is a short cut route for people coming from the west and heading to Glacier National Park, Flathead Lake, Kalispell, and all points in between.  It's southern (or western) terminus is Plains, from whence it climbs steeply for close to eight miles before crossing into the Flathead Indian Reservation.  Shortly after crossing the Reservation boundary, it passes alongside Dog Lake which is also known as Rainbow Lake, and which requires a Tribal Recreation Permit to enjoy the waters.  Beyond Dog Lake, the scenery opens up for a view across the Camas Prairie, and then, after a final climb, there is a 6% grade drop toward the town of Hot Springs.  Before you reach Hot Springs, however, there is a junction with Montana Secondary 387 which leads back down to connect up with MT 200 at Perma.  Downshifting to 2nd, I turned onto 387 and headed back down the mountain.

The Camas Prairie School

The grandparents of my good friend Doc Reynolds

taught here once upon a time

Sanders County, Montana

On the way south, I passed the Camas Prairie School and the assorted ranches that house the local population, and in no time at all I was crossing the Flathead River and turning right onto MT 200 to make the final leg of my test drive.  I love the drive along the Flathead, even the Perma Curves where a series of tight twists slow traffic considerably on this beautiful section of road.  Being able to make the drive with the top down was just the best.  This is a section of highway I would like to take by bicycle, and indeed on today's drive, I met a group of bike tourists right in the Perma Curves.  I waved to each and every one of the dozen or so riders, but they were concentrating heavily on the road and the lack of shoulder space through the curves so didn't wave back.  I wasn't hurt by that.

Out of the curves, the road straightens and widens as it passes the junction with MT 135, the road that connects us to Interstate 90 some 21 miles southwest of the junction.  Three miles beyond that junction is the town of Paradise, and seven miles beyond Paradise is Plains.  The car didn't give me any problems on my drive, and handled the mountain roads with aplomb, not losing power or cutting out once.  I did notice that between the speeds of 45 and 55 there was a lot of shimmy in the steering wheel.  It smoothed out above 55, but this was definitely something I needed to look into.  One of the first businesses you meet entering Plains from the east is Baldy Mountain Tire.  I stopped there and they agreed to check all four tires for air pressure and balance.  As a reminder of how bad the economy is around here, the manager offered to check just the front two tires, as their charge was $8 per tire.  I assured him that my life was worth more than $32, and please, check all four.  The good news is that there is lots of tread left on the tires.  The bad news is that there is enough dry rot to warrant replacing all the tires with new ones.  I will do that anon, but not today.  One tire in particular, the right front, was badly out of balance and had worn in an uneven manner.  That was probably the cause of my shimmy.  As a precaution, the good people at Baldy Mountain rotated my tires as well, and I'm happy to say that the shimmy seems to have disappeared.

One last stop on my way home was to see when Gary's AutoBody and Glass could change my oil.  How about tomorrow at 8?  Great, that will get the oil changed (and I'll have them replace the fuel filter at the same time), and will allow me to be on the road in time to have lunch with Reneé and her partner Linda in Kalispell.  I can hardly wait.  Now--if the thunderstorms in the forecast will just hold off till I get there and back...  More to come.

 

The Clark Fork River east of Plains, Montana

(Note the bighorn sheep in the lower right corner)

By the way.  This was a day for a test drive, not photography.  All the pictures shown above were taken over the past few months as I've driven around the area.  The picture of the TR7 was taken this afternoon in my driveway at 12 Kay Wood Drive, Plains.

13 Miles From Paraduse

 12 Kay Wood Drive, Plains, Montana 59859

In the aftermath of closing our business, Kevin and I finally came to the decision that in order to pay off the bills, including the loan we had taken out to start the business in the first place, I would have to sell my beloved land in the Bitterroot.  This land had been in my family for almost sixty years, and it was the one place that was a constant as I grew up.  Even after we moved to California, we spent one month each year at the three-room log cabin west of Stevensville.  When Berkeley got to be just too much, and I wanted some solitude to write my dissertation, I asked my parents for the keys to the cabin and in January, 1975, I moved to Montana and lived in the cabin for eight of the snowiest months I've seen since I've been back in the Treasure State.  It was wonderful, I was twenty-five, and the healthiest I've ever been.  I never envisioned losing that place, and for the past thirty years I have dreamt of building my retirement home in a meadow behind the cabin with a glorious view of St. Mary's Mountain to the west.

Ah, but things do change in our lives, and reluctantly I came to understand that my dreams would not come true.  We placed the land for sale and it sold in one day.  Obviously we priced it too low, you can say, but nonetheless we were able to pay off the loan, and start remodeling the house in Missoula, preparing it for sale.  You see, we had decided that if we couldn't retire on our land, then it was time to reinvent our lives, and time to leave Missoula.  We started looking for new digs in June, 2012.

Looking across the deck on a snowy October morning

The first place we checked was Seeley Lake.  Kevin had lived in Seeley years before, and I own a time-share condo at the Double Arrow Ranch there.  It seemed like a good place to start.  A local realtor showed us several places, and one stood out.  I was ready to sign a contract, but the Stevensville sale had not yet closed, and I didn't want to commit money I didn't have in hand.  That's what got us into trouble in the first place.

The next area we checked out was Anaconda/Georgetown Lake.  We only looked at a few homes there, but they were among the most amazing places we saw.  One was a beautiful hand-built log home, high above the valley, and completely off the grid.  Gorgeous views, but did we really want to be that far up the mountain?  We did submit an offer on a home just outside of Anaconda, but in our offer we asked for more than the seller was willing to give, and we refused to counter.  In fact, purchasing the house with its twenty fenced acres, barn, horse stalls, and storage units would have really pressed us financially.  But we would have had enough space for all our stuff--if only by filling up the four storage units that went with the property.  The house even had a nice pond off the front deck.  When I asked if it was possible to swim in the pond, the response I got was "There are fish in it."  OK.  There have been fish in every river and lake I've ever swum in, so what's your point?  I was only wondering if the pond was deep enough for swimming.

One of the three "pet" white-tailed deer that stay around the house, 
driving the dogs crazy

We spent one day looking at property in Lake and Flathead Counties, seeing some beautiful homes just outside of Whitefish, but again, we didn't think the asking price reflected reality--at least not our reality.

In July we started looking in Sanders County.  I'm not sure why, as neither of us had any ties to that northwest corner of Montana.  We phoned several realtors, leaving messages, and one, Denise Goodwin, got right back to us.  Denise was amazing.  She led us all over the county, from Plains to Noxon, and everywhere in between.  The fourth house she showed us was all it took for me.  After seeing the house at 12 Kay Wood Drive, nothing else came close.  Of all the property we looked at in our quest, I had three basic reactions.  Several houses left me feeling that the property could only be improved by bringing in a bulldozer.  Other houses spoke to me saying, "You could make this a home."  The house at 12 Kay Wood Drive said quietly, but very, very clearly, "You ARE home."

We submitted our first offer in late July.  We noted in the offer that while it was possible to build a legal road to the house, there was no legal access currently in place.  The driveway to the house crosses another piece of property and there is no easement given in writing to allow us to use our own driveway.  This could prove to be a problem.  The property we were trying to buy included the house and approximately 6 acres of timbered hillside, subdivided from a larger ranch, with its own cul-de-sac road.  The house was the only house built on that cul-de-sac, the rest of the parcels remaining bare land.

The property we were trying to buy had been foreclosed, and we were dealing with a bank headquartered somewhere back East.  Their response to our note about the driveway was to pull the house from the market, saying that "Obviously the title company has made a mistake, and they will have to fix that problem."  Well, the way we see it, the title company had nothing to do with the driveway, and there was nothing they could do to fix the problem, short of building a brand-new driveway.

An October sunrise viewed from the deck

We submitted a new offer stating that we were aware of the problem and would deal with it ourselves.  The bank responded by hiking the asking price.  WHAT????  After a few more of these insane back and forth paper flows, we gave up, and walked away.  The house at 12 Kay Wood Drive was not supposed to be ours.

I took off the month of August, and spent it driving cross country in my new Saab 9-4x and visiting my family in West Virginia.  I've written up that trip at length in early posts.  Once back in Missoula, Kevin and I half-heartedly looked at some property near Missoula.  We saw one of those "I could make this a home" houses in Lolo, and put in an offer.  As it turns out, the realtor selling the Lolo house was the same one who had listed 12 Kay Wood Drive.  He told us we should put in another offer on the house we loved.  Our offer in Lolo was second, so we lost out on it, but when we went back to Denise, she found that the asking price on Kay Wood had dropped considerably.  We immediately put in an offer for the full asking price, including all the provisions we had stated earlier about the driveway.  This time the bank accepted our offer.  The sale closed on October 12, 2012, three months after we started the process, and I moved in that afternoon.

We've now been here three and a half months.  I'm beginning to believe that we will never be fully moved in, and when I look around, I still feel as if I'm dreaming, or vacationing, or have somehow ended up in a spectacular setting that isn't really mine.  When that happens, the house continues to tell me, quietly but firmly, "You ARE home."

The house sits at the top of the 6 acres, with views to the southeast of Pat's Knob, the second highest peak in the Coeur d'Alene range of the Bitterroot Mountains.  A few years back I wrote a post about spending Labor Day on top of Pat's Knob with Kevin's ham radio folk.  Now I can look out my windows and see the mountain every day.

Looking out our front door--our Christmas card for 2012

The house has an attached, oversized two-car garage, a pantry, a huge kitchen with lots of counter space and cabinets, a formal dining room, a living room with floor to ceiling windows looking out over the property and the valley beyond, a master bedroom suite with his and his closets and a master bath with shower, jetted tub, and two sinks and medicine cabinets (his and his again).  The front entry also sports a half bath, guest closet, and the stairway leading upstairs to the balcony which opens over the living room and three large bedrooms with a full bath.  We sit in the living room and watch our three "pet" white-tailed deer who seem to live on the land and drive our dogs crazy at some point every day.  We also watch our flocks of wild turkeys who strut their stuff across the land at some point every day. 

On the lower level, there is a 3/4 bath (it has a shower, but no tub), the mechanical room, a large family room with wet bar, another bedroom that Kevin is using as an office, and two blind rooms built back into the hillside.  These rooms are each nearly thirty feet long, and as they have no windows, I can put bookcases on all four walls and not block anything.  One of the rooms is now my library/study, where I'm sitting as I write this.  The other has two large floor looms, my piano, guitars and other instruments, storage for my yarn and record collections, and will soon have a 3-manual Rogers organ.

As I said above, for thirty years I had dreamt of building a retirement home on my land.  If the man who designed and built 12 Kay Wood Drive had had access to my dreams, he would have been hard put to come up with anything closer to what I actually wanted.  I am home.

We're out of the way, off the beaten track, but if you don't mind unpacked boxes in almost every room, you're welcome to come visit.  We can even put you up for a while as two of the upstairs bedrooms are fully fitted out with beds, chests of drawers, and dressers.  There's a hide-a-bed couch in Kevin's office as well, and with bathrooms on every floor, there's no need to wait.  Ya'll come.

Part of one of two large flocks of turkeys that visit regularly

Taken out the front door 

And why do I call this 13 miles from Paradise?  Way back in 1975, when Amtrak still crossed southern Montana on the old Northern Pacific rails, my friend Jim came up for a visit.  He crossed Washington and Idaho at night, and woke up when the train came to a stop around 6 am.  Looking out the window, he saw the station sign reading "Paradise."  Jim felt that he wasn't quite ready for that final destination, but I've never forgotten him telling me about it.  Well, don't ya know, our new home is just outside of Plains, Montana, the next town west of Paradise.  Jim's wake up station is just thirteen miles down the road from 12 Kay Wood Drive.  It's now thirty-eight years after I first moved back to Montana, and since Jim woke up in Paradise.  For now, I'm quite content being thirteen miles away.

By the way, should you want to write us, don't use the street address.  We have a post office box.  Our phone numbers are unchanged.  Here's our mailing address:  

Bryan Spellman and Kevin Kerr

P.O. Box 69

Plains  MT 59859 

Sheep on Road

Last Year's View (12/3/2011)

What the sign actually says is "Sheep on Road Next 1 Mile."  It's an electric signboard where someone can change the message, and the power comes from the sun.  For as long as I can remember, it's read just what it said this afternoon.  Usually there are no sheep on the road.  Occasionally there will be one or two.  Last winter, my cousin Ron and I slowed down to follow a pair of rams walking at a leisurely pace down the middle of the west-bound lane.  Oh, did I mention we're talking about Montana Highway 200, between Wild Horse Plains and Thompson Falls?  And the sheep in question are Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis).  The sheep are manifest, blatantly taking their space in the narrow canyons between the Clark Fork River and the rock walls along the north side of the highway.  There are at least three sections of road between Plains and Thompson where you are likely to see sheep, and only on rare occasions have I traveled the twenty-five miles without seeing sheep somewhere along the road.

The View West from Lower Lynch Creek Road

This morning Kevin and I drove into Thompson (the Sanders County Seat) to pay the taxes on our new home, check on employment possibilities with the Sanders County Sheriff's Office (for Kevin, not me), and pick up some groceries so I can use up the Thanksgiving leftovers.  It was a beautiful morning, blue skies, sunshine, hoar frost on the trees, low clouds rising off the river, in short--a great day for a drive.  I always intend to have my camera ready, but I have to admit, that more times than not, the camera ends up left on my desk in the library at home, and I find myself staring at absolutely gorgeous scenes with no way to share them.  No so today.

After stopping at the Post Office to pick up any new mail, then hitting Sinclair for Kevin's morning Pepsi, we turned the big red wagon toward the West, and headed to Thompson Falls.  Now the way I direct people to our new home is by telling them to drive west through Plains (Wild Horse Plains, to give it the full and proper name), drive past the bank, past the hospital, past the dinosaurs (yes, there are three concrete dinosaurs next to the highway), then at milepost 75, turn right onto Lower Lynch Creek Road.  After three and a half miles heading north, you'll come to a junction with a poorly designed road sign.  That is the sign shows the names of both roads, but doesn't indicate which road is which.  Take the left fork onto High Country Road and climb the hill for roughly 9/10s of a mile.  At that point, there will be another fork, and this time you take the right fork onto Baldy View Road.  Baldy is the mountain that rises directly behind the town of Hot Springs,  about eightteen miles north of Plains.  If Hot Springs claims the face of Baldy, I guess we view the back side.

Baldy, as seen from Montana Highway 200

A little further west on 200 and you're in the canyon so loved by the sheep.  This canyon extends most of the way to Thompson Falls, with a few sections where the valley floor might be a mile wide.  Most of the way, the mountains come down to the river on the south, and climb right back up on the north. Often there are rock faces, and these are where the sheep live.  There are several places along the highway where I long to get out with my camera in hand, but places to pull off the highway are few and far between.  One of these days, however...

For this trip, I was content to set my camera on Shutter priority in order to beat the highway speed Kevin was driving, and I took my shots through the windshield and side windows of the truck.  I'm not complaining, although usually I am not happy with the results when I try this trick.  In the past, however, I've kept the camera on Aperture Priority, and often end up with very blurred foregrounds.

The River, the Railroad, the Highway, and the Mountains Beyond

In Thompson Falls, we stopped at the Court House and paid our property taxes.  Kevin tried to catch up with a colleague in the Sheriff's Office, unsuccessfully, and we headed to Genki for lunch.  Genki is an "Asian Fusion" restaurant, which means, as near as I can tell, that the menu is a mixture of Japanese and Chinese dishes, as are the decorations on the wall.  Kevin and I both had the daily special "A" which consisted of a cup of egg drop soup, a serving of shrimp and veggie tempura (one shrimp, one slice of yam, one slice of zucchini), a serving of sweet and sour chicken, and a ball of rice which served as the East China Sea separating Japan and China, at least gastronomically.  I'm not normally a fan of egg drop soup, but this was quite tasty, easily the best I've had.  The tempura and chicken were both very good, and I left pleased with my meal.  I have no idea how such a restaurant will survive in meat and potatoes Thompson Falls, but I wondered the same thing about the restaurant that used to reside in exactly the same location.  Years ago, my friend Vaun Stevens and I drove to Thompson for the simple reason that Montana Magazine had reviewed a restaurant there and named it one of the best in Montana.  I cannot at this point summon the name of that place, but I'll never forget the experience of walking in, sitting down, and having the owner ask what we wanted--refusing to give us a menu as he didn't want to limit our choices.  I no longer remember what either of us ordered, but I do remember the meal was superb, and I also remember a special treat that the owner set down before us.  Sliced strawberries in a brown liquid that he identified only after we praised the dish.  That was my introduction to Balsamic vinegar.  I asked him at the time how he planned on surviving in Thompson Falls, Montana, with a choice of entrees that would please the most jaded big city palate.  I didn't ask the folks at Genki that question, but I do wish them well.

The Thompson River at Montana Highway 200

On the way home, I grabbed a quick shot of the Thompson River, just barely catching the river in the frame as I aimed my camera past Kevin out the driver's side window of the pickup. I set the camera on the floor, content to ride home enjoying the day.  The sun was not in a spot conducive to good photography, and besides, I figured I had a nice selection of shots already.

What the sign actually says is "Sheep on Road Next 1 Mile."  It's an electric signboard where someone can change the message, and the power comes from the sun.  For as long as I can remember, it's read just what it said this afternoon.  Usually there are no sheep on the road.  Occasionally there will be one or two.  This afternoon, what the sign should have said was "Sheep on Road Immediately In Front of Your Truck and Before You Ever Actually Reach This Sign."  Kevin hit the brakes as the five sheep, three rams and a couple of ewes, raced across the road directly in front of us.  At one point, all I could see was the tail end of a sheep so close to the hood of the truck I have no idea why we didn't hit it.  But we didn't, and I guess that's what really counts.  It doesn't matter that it all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to pick up the camera and shoot the damn sheep!

P.S. If you're coming to visit, and I really wish you would, once you turn off High Country onto Baldy View, you'll drive a short ways till you see a road leading off to the left with a street sign reading Kay Wood Dr.  Turn onto Kay Wood and proceed to the end of the road. That's where you'll find us--the only house on the street and clear at the end.  The door is open and the light is on.  Ya'll come!

The Second Sunday Drive, End of the Road

 

The Magnetic Valley Resort

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Walking at night along the meadow way,
Home from the dance beside my sweetheart* gay,
Walking at night along the meadow way,
Home from the dance beside my sweetheart gay! Hey!
Stodola, stodola, stodola pumpa
Stodola pumpa, stodola pumpa
Stodola, stodola, stodola pumpa
Stodola pumpa, pum pum pum
--Czech folk song as we sang it at church camp*

I found many versions of Stodola Pumpa on YouTube, perhaps the most intriguing being a Korean men's choir singing it in barely understandable English, the most charming being a group of small children playing it on their violins at a music camp in Hot Springs, Arkansas (shades of Suzuki Violin Camp).  But only one version used the same lyrics I remember from my childhood, and that's this one played and loaded by kaburto1966.  Curiously, there don't seem to be any versions that give the lyrics in the original Czech.  Sorry, Mark.

(OK, I know you really want to hear the Arkansas kids playing it on their violins. Click here for that.)

We woke on the morning of September 5th to the news that we would have to return home.  A friend was having trouble with the police and needed us immediately, if not sooner.  Having packed the car, we said good-bye to our hosts, Alvin and Charley, at the Magnetic Valley Resort, and headed north into Missouri, stopping at Cassville for breakfast.  While we ate breakfast, Kevin was able to get in touch with our lawyer and was told the problem had been resolved.  We turned around and headed back to Eureka Springs as we had wanted to spend another full day at the resort, enjoying its pool and the company of the handsome men who came as day visitors.  (There was only one other overnight guest staying at the resort.)  Our original plan had been to spend two nights at Magnetic Valley, then head west into Oklahoma, possibly dip down into Texas, then return home via Kansas and Colorado, until we reached Denver and I-25 which would take us north into Wyoming and merge with I-90 for the rest of the trip home.  I had made reservations to stay at a gay campground (Circle J) in the Dallas area, but as we headed to Cassville, I called and cancelled those reservations.  I had met the owners of Circle J while staying at Roseland, and was looking forward to seeing them again in their home environment.  Oh well, that will wait for a subsequent trip.

 

In case you couldn't tell, this is the Missouri State Line

 Back at Magnetic Valley Resort, we spent the day in and by the pool.  A variety of men ranging in age from their 20s up into their 70s came by for a while to sit beside the pool or play in it.  The weather was beautiful, not too hot, but pleasant enough to warrant remaining suit-free.  Even Kevin, who normally won't consider stripping down, was naked in the pool.  

As we learned, a group of these men get together every Wednesday for Prayer Meeting (at least I think that's what they call it).  Instead of going to church, they meet for dinner at an area restaurant, and we were invited to join them.  This evening, dinner was to be at a Thai place in Eureka Springs, and ten of us enjoyed a very pleasant evening and terrific food.  One of the men present actually spoke Thai, and we listened in as he and the waiter discussed the dishes.  At least I assume that's what they were discussing.  My Thai is non-existent.  They could have been saying anything at all--or even just jibberish.

 

Table Rock Lake, Missouri/Arkansas

Back at the Resort, I stayed by the pool enjoying the company of our host Charley, while Kevin returned to our room in the Dudeplex, one of the buildings accommodating guests at the Resort.  Around nine p.m.  Kevin appeared at the end of the pool and called me away from Charley.  We had to leave immediately, he said.  Apparently all was not well in Missoula, and regardless of what our lawyer had told us while we were having breakfast, the police were not done with our friend.  In fact, they had arrested him, taken him to the Detention Facility in Missoula, and left Kevin's Expedition, which our friend had been driving at the time, on the side of the road.  What was worse than the situation with Kevin's car was that our friend had been house and dog sitting, and now there was no one taking care of our kids while we gallivanted around the country.

  

Holiday Island, Arkansas

We packed the Saab for the second time that day, and once again bid adieu to our hosts.  Heading north in the dark, we left Eureka Springs, once again drove through Holiday Island, Arkansas, crossed into Missouri, crossed Table Rock Lake (I'm so glad I got my pictures earlier in the day), and drove back to Cassville.  North of Cassville, we caught a major highway which took us past Kansas City and St. Joseph, until we crossed into Iowa.  We bypassed Council Bluffs (and by extension, Omaha Nebraska which is right across the river), continuing north to Sioux City where we crossed into South Dakota.  The sun came up somewhere around Sioux Falls, and by now we were on I-90 heading west toward home.

It feels like it takes forever to cross South Dakota on I-90, and it didn't help that we'd been driving all night after having a full day in Arkansas.  I don't recall when are where we stopped for food and gas, but at a rest area along the way, I asked about the fires in southeastern Montana.  When I had left, much of Powder River County was in flames, and I wasn't sure if we'd be able to make it home taking our usual route.  I was assured that there was no longer any real danger of being delayed by fire, but construction was causing significant delays on US 212.  As a result, we chose to stay on I-90 crossing northern Wyoming.

Dinner Thursday evening was at our favorite truck stop outside of Laurel, Montana, still over three hundred miles from home.  By the time we reached Missoula, we had been driving for twenty-five hours, with stops only for food and gasoline.  We had driven over 1,600 miles since leaving Eureka Springs, and over 6,000 miles by rail and Saab since leaving Missoula over a month earlier.  I certainly got a feel for how my new car behaved on a variety of roads and under various conditions.  Much as I enjoyed the trip, it was good to be home, and waiting for the next adventure.

 

The Pool at Magnetic Valley Resort

*The words, as we sang them at church camp said "maiden gay," but "sweetheart gay" seemed more appropriate to me under the circumstances.

 The Second Sunday Drive, Day 34

 

A Kudzu Covered Landscape

Western Mississippi

Many years have passed, the trav'lers gay,
Repeat the tune along the highway;
And every voice that sings the glad refrain
Re-echoes from the mountains to the fields of growing grain.

--Music by Colonel Sanford C. "Sandy" Faulkner, lyrics by a committee!

 To hear Bill Monroe play the Arkansas Traveler, click here.

Now the lyrics above are not the lyrics I learned as a child, although under the circumstances they seemed appropriate.  For you old fogies, like me, who remember things a little differently, the words I learned went:

Oh, once upon a time in Arkansas,
An old man sat in his little cabin door
And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,
A jolly old tune that he played by ear.

  On Monday evening, Yelp had helped us find Stromboli's and, as I noted in my previous post, the best pizza ever (even Kevin thought so).  Tuesday morning, however, was not as promising.  The earliest opening I found on Yelp was 11:00 and that was way too late for us to have breakfast.  We asked at the front desk as we checked out, and were given the options of Huddle House and Waffle House.  The desk clerk had a definite preference, and for the second day in a row we had breakfast at Waffle House, albeit in a different state than the day before.

After breakfast, Kevin met with the owner of MFJ Enterprises, and filled the back seat of the Saab with catalogs from that amateur radio accessories manufacturer.  He also put in a plastic bag with two MFJ coffee mugs--something I learned only when I heard what I thought was glass breaking behind me.  I had visions of West Virginia wine staining the carpeting, but no, it was the empty coffee mugs, and they didn't even break.

 

Cotton Fields, West Central Mississippi

The last time I traveled through Mississippi, I was riding the train.  In 1999, I attended the winter convention of New Image International which was held in Birmingham, Alabama.  As I had some vacation time saved up and had never ridden the train in the United States, I decided to take Amtrak to Birmingham and back.  My choice of itinerary meant taking the Empire Builder from Whitefish, Montana to Chicago, Illinois, the same train on which I started this Second Sunday Drive.  But the winter conference was in the middle of January, and there was no leaving the station once we got to Chicago.  Way too cold. At Chicago I boarded the City of New Orleans and headed south across Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and finally Louisiana.  There was an overnight in New Orleans, which troubled Amtrak no end.  When I booked my tickets, the clerk kept trying to change my mind.  From Chicago I should take the Capitol Limited to D.C., then change to the Southern Crescent to reach my final destination of Birmingham.  When I insisted that I wanted to take the City of New Orleans, the clerk despaired.  "You'll have to spend the night in New Orleans."  I replied that there are worse things than spending a night in New Orleans, and indeed changed my itinerary to spend two nights in the Big Easy.

The City of New Orleans crosses Mississippi on a north-south route, and you see a lot of the state.  Even in the wintertime, you cross the state during daylight hours, and I have to say that my impression of the Magnolia State was not good.  This was the ugliest place I've ever seen.  From New Orleans to Birmingham, I took the Southern Crescent, at that time an older train where the cars were only one level and the seating was just above the rails.  (Both the Empire Builder and the City of New Orleans used newer, two level cars where you rode one level above the tracks.)  The route took us across Lake Pontchartrain and into Mississippi near the town of Picayune, then past Hattiesburg and Meridian before crossing into Alabama.  I felt that I had seen quite a bit of Mississippi and was not impressed.  It didn't help that our train broke down somewhere between Hattiesburg and Meridian and we sat in silence on the tracks for about half an hour.

Crossing the state by car, I was able to see a different, and greener, side of Mississippi.  Can't say that I have a much better impression of that state, but c'est la vie.  The one question I can't answer is how anyone lives in such a hot and humid climate.  When we asked natives, the response we got was invariably, "This isn't so bad."

 

The Mississippi River

Helena, Arkansas

We turned off U.S. 82 heading north on Interstate 55.  Past Batesville (of the Batesville Casket Company), we left the Interstate and drove west on Mississippi 315 until we reached the Big Muddy, the Mississippi River itself.  Crossing into Arkansas, we stopped at the Arkansas Visitor Center at Helena where I was offered a packet of brochures, maps and advertisements for various attractions throughout "the Natural State."  When I told the hostess that we were headed for Eureka Springs, she expressed amazement that we would try to get so far in one day--undoubtedly dismayed that we wouldn't be spending more time (and money) as Arkansas travelers.

Kevin did have another stop in mind.  A ham radio shop in DeWitt, Arkansas had caught his attention on the web, so from Helena we drove south and west to the seat of Arkansas County.  Over the phone, the shop owner told Kevin that he would probably be disappointed by his store, and when we got there, we found a small ham business tied in with a satellite tv operation.  While Kevin talked with the store owner, I stayed in the car reading.  By the time Kevin returned to the car, it was pushing 2 p.m. and I was past being ready for lunch.  Turning to Yelp again, I found a café across from the county court house, and that's where we headed.  The café was closed, as was every other food establishment we saw.  A UPS delivery man explained that he carried his lunch with him because "These folks eat lunch at noon, and then the restaurants close until dinner time."  Out by the main highway we found a Sonic and a Subway, and opted for the Subway because I wasn't ready to bring food into my new car.

 
Driving Interstate 40 into the Ozarks

From DeWitt, we drove north through  Stuttgart, catching Interstate 40 which let us skirt Little Rock as we continued north and west across the state.  Bypassing Conway, Russellville and Clarksville, we left the interstate to drive north on Arkansas 23.  We were finally in the Ozarks and this road could give some West Virginia highways a run for their money.  Kevin was driving and got to find out just how well the Saab handled in such situations.  There were a few times he passed trucks crossing double yellow lines to do so, but had he not passed the slow-moving behemoths, we might still be on 23. 

Once in Eureka Springs, we found Magnetic Road and Nancy led us right to the artists' entrance to the Ozark Passion Play.  This was not quite what we were looking for, but continuing on up the road, we found our lodging for the night, checked in, unpacked the car, and moved to the pool area where we visited with our hosts.  The day involved over 500 miles crossing two states, and had taken well over the nine hours that Mapquest suggests. 

 

An Ozark Mountain Farm

Near Huntsville, Arkansas

The Second Sunday Drive, Day 33

Parked in front of our cabin

Bluff Creek Falls, Steele Alabama

Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interestin' right about now

                 --Words and Music by Bob Dylan

To hear the Dixie Chicks' version of Bob Dylan's song, Mississippi, click here.

We rose early Monday morning, Labor Day, having spent the night listening to Isaac's rain beating down on the metal roof of our cabin.  I felt sorry for the guys who were tenting.  While Kevin packed up the car, I wandered through the campground and got some pics to remember the place by.  We never made it into the pool, nor did we visit the evening campfire, but we had a good time anyway, and it was now time to head on down the road.

Interstate 59 took us into and through Birmingham, and while I had wanted to photograph Vulcan in all his unclad glory, I wasn't just sure where to get off the highway, so we passed on through the city.  For those of you who don't know Birmingham, let me assure you that the world's largest cast iron statue is not showing full frontal nudity.  He is wearing a blacksmith's apron, but he moons the residential area of the city that lies behind him.  I'd seen the statue, front and rear, the last (and only previous) time I'd been in Birmingham, back in 1999.  At that time, I was attending the winter conference of New Image International, held over the three-day Martin Luther King holiday.  What a time to be in the Deep South.  As it turns out, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in protest of the holiday, and where did they hold it?  Exactly midway between our downtown hotel and the Birmingham-Jefferson County Convention Complex where we were meeting.  What fun.  What had been a pleasant four block walk on Saturday turned into a harrowing mile-long drive to get around the police barricades.  It reminded me of my college days.

 

 

The Pool at Bluff Creek Falls

(Note how wet the deck is--thank you Isaac)

 

This three-day holiday weekend, Kevin and I drove unmolested through the city, never getting off the interstate, until we decided it was time (past time, actually) for breakfast.  Waffle House is ubiquitous throughout the South, and that's where we ended up, in one of Birmingham's southwestern suburbs.  I mentioned to the waitress that Kevin had never eaten at a Waffle House, and she promptly brought out a WH hat for him to wear.  I think he's still got it somewhere.

After breakfast, we continued on I-59 to Tuscaloosa, where we drove through the city on Lurleen B Wallace Boulevard, crossing the city till we turned onto U.S. 82 heading west.  Tuscaloosa is the home of the University of Alabama--the Crimson Tide--and has many streets named for famous people, not all of them football heroes.  For example, there is also a Helen Keller Boulevard, a Jack Warner Parkway, and a Paul W. Bryant Drive.

 

 

Heading west across Alabama

 

Heading west from Tuscaloosa, we passed miles of farmland, and miles of Kudzu covered landscape.  We crossed into Mississippi heading for Starkville, home of Mississippi State University and MFJ Enterprises, "the world leaders in amateur radio accessories," according to the souvenir mug I have before me.  As Kevin is a ham (amateur) radio operator, I leave it to you to figure out just why we had driven so many miles out of our way home.  As it was Labor Day, we couldn't visit MFJ, so after we found their offices, we checked into the Days Inn on Veterans' Memorial Drive.  What is it with these southern cities?  Can't they just use letters and numbers to name their streets?  As we were leaving the front desk, we noticed the sign advising us that the pool was closed for repairs.  The temperature was approaching 100 degrees and the humidity was right up there with the temp.  A closed pool was not a good sign.

 

 

Welcome to Mississippi

 

We didn't do much in the way of sightseeing while in Starkville, opting instead to stay in our air-conditioned room.  We did, however, head to Stromboli's for dinner, having found the place on my iPhone's Yelp app.  The place was packed, to the extent that we had to wait for a table.  I couldn't help but notice that we were old enough to be the grandfathers of most of the clientele.  Well, this is a college town and we were in a pizza place.  But the owner(?) who greeted us was very friendly, and took our order before we ever got a table so that the wait was minimized when we were finally seated.  And the pizza?  I can say right now that it is bar none the best pizza I have ever had.  Can't say I recommend travel to or through Mississippi, especially not in the summer, but should you find yourself in Starkville, by all means visit Stromboli's.

Later that evening, Kevin and I walked about a block from our motel to enjoy an evening ice cream, then it was bedtime.  We had driven less than 200 miles from Steele, Alabama to Starkville, making this one of the shorter days of the drive.

 

Hail State

Mississippi State University

The Second Sunday Drive, Day 32

 

Downtown Cincinnati

(as seen from Interstate 71)

When you hear the whistle blowin' eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

- words by Mack Gordon, music by Harry Warren

To hear Glenn Miller and his band play Chattanooga Choo Choo, click here.  

 

Kevin has spent time as a long-haul trucker (as any of you who read my posts about riding in the big rig can attest).  For long-haul truckers, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System has been a God send.  With Kevin in the car, it was no longer a matter of twisting, turning back country roads.  Now we were dealing with miles to cover and how to get to the next destination in the most efficient way.  Nancy's shortest gave way to fastest, in other words.  Well, for the most part.

After the complimentary hotel breakfast, we turned right onto Hamilton Road and left onto I-70, a block north of the hotel.  Nancy (and Mapquest, I might add) wanted us to turn left on Hamilton and take city streets to some point south and west where we would catch I-71.  Instead, we drove west into the center of Columbus where we bore left onto I-71 heading toward Cincinnati, the Ohio River and Kentucky.

We did have a new traveling companion on this leg of the drive.  Hurricane Isaac had hit land a couple of days earlier, devastating the Louisiana lowlands, and moving up the Mississippi River.  By Sunday, September 2, the middle of Labor Day Weekend, Isaac had been downgraded but was pelting the Ohio River Valley with torrential rains.  The storm's path was wide, and we had heard thunder during the night in Columbus.  Most of the day's drive would be in rainy, and sometimes windy conditions.  It was not a day for stopping, admiring the scenery and getting out the camera.

 

A Kentucky Barn

(Near Berea, Kentucky)

We crossed the Ohio, passing from Cincinnati to Covington, Kentucky, home of the Cincinnati airport  (now you know why your luggage tags for Cincinnati are marked CVG--CoVinGton), and continued south across Kentucky on I-75 toward Lexington.  I've spent many a pleasant day in Lexington, and wouldn't have minded getting off the highway to visit  Joseph Beth Booksellers or have lunch at Joe's Crab Shack, but it was not to be.   We also passed by Berea, Kentucky, a place I have wanted to visit for many, many years.  As we drove into London, we saw a sign for Biker's Leathers, and decided that maybe, just maybe, it was time to get off the road for a bit.  Ah yes, it was Sunday of Labor Day Weekend and the leather outlet was closed.  But the truckstop restaurant next door, the one with the huge sign reading "Home Cooking" was open and it was lunch time, more or less.  

The restaurant gave us the choice of getting in line for the steam table buffet or sitting at a booth and having a waitress bring us a menu.  We choose the latter option, and when our waitress arrived at the table, Kevin asked if the sign was correct.  As the walls were covered with signs, the poor woman didn't know what to say until Kevin pointed out the large one reading "It's all good!"  She assured us that it was.  Now I have to admit, I never actually heard her say "Kiss My Grits," but if Florence Jean Castleberry had a human model, it was surely our waitress.

With an order each of Pork Chop Sandwiches in our bellies, we climbed back into the Saab and continued south through the Daniel Boone National Forest and into Tennessee.  Just north of Knoxville, the rain, which had been intermittent all day long, became torrential.  I don't recall ever seeing a rain as heavy, and as I could no longer see the road nor any of the traffic on the road, I became very nervous--not the best state for a driver on the Interstate.  I pulled off the highway and let Kevin take over as he claimed he could see the road.

 

A Rainy I-75 in northern Tennessee

It would get much, much worse

Passing through Knoxville, the weather alternated between heavy rain and overcast, but dry conditions.  Some stretches of the highway actually seemed dry, but then, in a quarter mile or so, we'd be back in the rain.  It reminded me of the Montana saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes."  

At Chattanooga, we missed the opportunity to see (and ride) the Choo-Choo, but left I-75 for I-24 heading west.   Now one of the things I like to capture through the windshield is any sign indicating that we were crossing into a new state.  But I had been relying on Nancy and didn't have a Tennessee map, so the sign saying "We're Glad You're in a Georgia State of Mind" flew by before I could get my camera up and ready.  I mean really, the last milepost I had seen indicated that we still had over one hundred miles of I-24 in Tennessee.  I missed the fact that the road dipped into Georgia, then curved back north into Tennessee to head on to Nashville and points north and west.  We, however, wouldn't as we turned onto I-59 toward Birmingham.

 

 

A Knoxville, Tennessee, residential district

If Interstate 75 is one of the longest sections of the system, running from southern Florida to Sault Sainte Marie on the Michigan/Ontario border, Interstate 59 is one of the shorter sections.  Designed to connect Birmingham, Alabama with New Orleans to the South and Chattanooga to the north, it never actually enters Tennessee due to that dip in I-24.

There are only three Georgia exits from I-59, and we passed each of them, heading into Alabama.  Kevin offered to turn around so I could get the Georgia sign from the southern side, but I said thanks, but no thanks.  We were headed for Bluff Creek Falls, a gay men's campground outside of Steele, Alabama, and I was worried that we might be running out of time.  

I had called Bluff Creek Falls earlier in the morning, asking about the possibility of getting a cabin for the night.  It was Labor Day Weekend, after all, and I wouldn't have been at all surprised to find them full up.  On the other hand, Isaac had been playing havoc with people's travel plans for the past week, and I could always hope for the best.  When I called, I was told that at present the campground was full, but I could call back after noon.  We were still on eastern time and Alabama is in the central time zone, so by noon C.D.T. we would be quite far south.  I was pleasantly surprised when a couple hours after my initial call, my phone rang and a man asked if I had called earlier about a reservation.  Indeed I had, and they now had an opening, in Papa Don's cabin.  I quickly reserved it and we had driven south knowing that we had a place for the night.  

I did have some unanswered questions, however.  Some gay campgrounds have cabins that are more like hotel accommodations, and some are more primitive.  A few are like Roseland and have both.  I wasn't sure what would be the case with Bluff Creek, nor did I know if they had any facilities serving meals or selling food.  As we drove south through northern Alabama, these questions became critical.  Best to call and ask, I guessed, and that's what I did.  For future reference, if you're staying at Bluff Creek, bring your own bedding.  Ditto on the food.  We pulled off I-59 at Gadsden, told Nancy to find us a WalMart, and ended up purchasing an entire bedding ensemble, complete with four pillows.  We needed queen-sized sheets for the campground, and knowing that our guest room bed at home also takes that size, I rationalized the purchase as getting an extra set for guests.  We also needed to eat before getting to the campground, so I called On Star and asked if there were a Popeye's or KFC nearby.  Indeed there was--right next to the WalMart parking lot, so Kevin was initiated into Popeye's chicken.

Once at Bluff Creek, we were quickly made to feel part of the family as it were, and once we had made up our bed, we were welcomed into the community and passed a very enjoyable evening.  For the day, we had driven almost 575 miles and had been on the road for close to twelve hours.  I thought this was one of the longest days we would spend on the road.  Boy was I mistaken.

 

 North Georgia's Southern Appalachians

From I-59